peer into the clouded depths of the chasm below the bridge. “I admit I grow lonesome for some witty conversation, bridge, and I remembered the pleasant nights I spent whiling away the sleepless hours with your sister.”
And was she still alive, Axis suddenly wondered, in the maelstrom that had consumed Tencendor?
“She has ever had a more companionable time than I,” grumbled the bridge. “Here I sat, spanning the depths between your world and Sanctuary, desperate for company yet hoping I would never find it.”
Axis nodded in understanding. Company would have meant — did mean — that complete disaster threatened the world above.
“And, yes,” the bridge added softly, “my sister still lives. The disaster is not yet complete, Axis SunSoar.”
Axis shifted uncomfortably. This bridge was far more adept at reading unspoken thoughts than her sister. “And when the disaster is complete? What then?”
“What then? Victory, my friend. Utter victory.”
Axis straightened, biting down his anger. “Disaster is utter victory? How can that be?”
An aura of absolute disinterest emanated from the bridge. “I am not the one who can show you that answer, Axis.”
“Then who? Who?”
There was no answer, save for a flash of blinding light and a sudden rattle of hooves.
Axis swore softly and raised a hand to shield his eyes against the rectangle of burning light that had appeared at the other end of the bridge. A large shape shifted within the light, blurred, then shifted again, resolving itself into a horse and rider.
The light flared, then faded.
The bridge screamed …
… and then convulsed.
Axis fell to his feet, sliding towards the centre of the bridge as he did so. He lay for an instant, badly winded by the impact.
He was given no time for recovery. The bridge lurched and then buckled, heaving under him, and Axis repeatedly fell over in his scrambling attempts to get to his feet.
The bridge screamed again, and Axis was raked with the emotions of death.
The bridge was dying.
Axis grabbed at one of the handrail supports, but it melted under his fingers leaving them coated with a sticky residue.
One of his legs fell through a large hole that abruptly appeared in the bridge … she was dissolving!
With a desperate heave Axis lunged towards the safety of the roadway, but the bridge was literally falling apart, still screaming, and her death throes tilted Axis further towards her centre, further away from the safety of the ground.
Another section of bridge fell away, and Axis stared down into the chasm, and certain death.
The bridge whimpered, and vanished.
Axis fell… and was jerked to a halt by a hand in the collar of his tunic.
The odour of a horse hot with sweat enveloped him, and Axis felt himself bump against the shoulder of the plunging animal. He grabbed automatically, finding the Sanctuary of a horse’s mane with his left hand, and the wiry strength of a man’s forearm with his right.
“Keep still!” a man’s voice barked. Axis turned his eyes up, and looked into the face of his hated son, Drago.
Except this man was not Drago. Axis instinctively felt it the instant he lay eyes on his face, and he knew it for sure once the man had deposited him on the road to Sanctuary.
This was a man who had once been Drago.
Axis bent over, resting his hands on his knees, and drew in great breaths, trying to recover his equilibrium at the twin shock of the bridge’s death and the appearance of… of…
Axis looked up, although he did not straighten. “What happened?” he said, not asking what he truly wanted to know.
The man slid off the horse, and Axis spared the animal a brief glance.
Gods! That was Belaguez!
Utterly shocked, Axis finally stood up straight, staring at the horse.
“I do not understand why the bridge died,” the man said, and Axis slid his eyes back to him. He was lean but strong, with Axis’ own height and musculature and with coppery-coloured hair drawn back into a tail in the nape of his neck.
The way I used to wear it as BattleAxe, Axis thought involuntarily.
The man was naked, save for a snowy linen cloth bound about his hips, and the most beautiful — and most patently enchanted — sword that Axis had ever seen. Its hilt was in the shape of a lily, and Axis could see the glimpse of a mirrored blade as it disappeared into a jewelled scabbard. The scabbard hung from an equally heavily jewelled belt, balanced by a similarly jewelled purse at the man’s other hip.
Axis slid his eyes to the man’s face.
Plain, ordinary, deeply lined, somewhat tired … and utterly extraordinary. Alive and hungry with magic. Serene and quiet with tranquillity.
Dark violet eyes regarded him with humour, understanding, and …
“Love?” Axis said. “I do not deserve that, surely.”
His voice was very hard and bitter.
“It is yours to accept or not,” DragonStar said, “as you wish.”
Axis stared at his son, hating himself for hating what he saw. “What have you done with Caelum?”
DragonStar paused before he replied, but his voice was steady. “Caelum is dead.”
Axis’ only visible reaction was a tightening of his face and a terrible hardening of his eyes. “You led him to his death!”
“Caelum went willingly,” DragonStar replied, his voice very gentle. “As he had to.”
Axis stared, unable to tear his eyes from DragonStar’s face, although he longed desperately to look somewhere, anywhere, else. “I —” he began, then stopped, unable to bear the hatred in his voice, and unable to understand to whom, or what, he wanted to direct that hatred.
There was a movement behind him, and then Azhure was at his side, as she had been for so many years.
And as she had so many times previously, she saved him from this battle.
Azhure touched Axis’ arm fleetingly, yet managing to impart infinite comfort with that briefest of caresses, then she stepped straight past her husband to DragonStar.
She paused, then spoke. “Did Caelum see you like this? As … as you were meant to be?”
DragonStar nodded, and Azhure’s entire body jerked slightly.
Then
